By Juan Montoya
The tab for the retrial of baby murderer John Allen Rubio is past $226,000 and rising.
Add that to the cost of the first trial, and it becomes clear that Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos' insistence on getting a death penalty in the case will continue to drain the county's indigent defense fund.
The tab for Rubio's first trial in 2003 has not been released by the Cameron County Auditor's Office, but if this latest retrial is any indication, the use of expert witnesses, defense attorneys, and other miscellaneous costs will push it way past the $500,000 mark.
A Freedom of Information request is pending.
"The county is under the gun to provide Rubio with adequate defense," said a local trial lawyer. "Under the American Bar Association guidelines, any indigent defendant charged with a capital murder crime has to have the best defense the county can offer."
Rubio, a Porter High School graduate, was found guilty November 2003 on three counts of capital murder in the deaths of his children Julissa Quesada, 3, John E. Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2.
The children were smothered, stabbed and mutilated, and then beheaded, according to investigators. Rubio's conviction of killing the children was reversed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in September of last year thus granting him a new trial.
His attorneys Ed Stapleton and Nat Lopez have been the latest beneficiaries of the county's generosity with their fees approaching $100,000 each. In his appeal of the conviction on his first trial, Rubio claimed that he had not been allowed to question his accuser after his wife (also charged in the case) testified in court.
Given the fact that the state is seeking a capital murder conviction, the county is under obligation to provide Rubio's defense attorneys with the experts, lab work, psychiatrists, etc., as they might deem necessary.
Still, some say that perhaps the DA would be better off seeking a life without parole sentence rather than seeking the death penalty.
"During the first trial, Nat Lopez urged the jury not give Rubio his wish and kill him," said a defense attorney. "He told them that Rubio wanted to die and asked them not to give him his wish."
Rubio's defense is based partly on claims their clients suffered from a mental illness and that he was temporarily insane.
Just recently, some evidence has surfaced that Rubio may have been misdiagnosed by Brownsville Independent School District Special Needs consultants and that he might have been the subject of a defective diagnoses. Rubio was tested in the same time period that the tests were termed legally "indefensible" in a BISD report.
Although scant details have been released about Rubio's confidential school file, could a misdiagnosis of his condition have had a bearing on his later actions?
Given all these indicators of some sort of mental imbalance, will the DA's office come to its senses and seek the life without parole sentence and stop the run by the defense on the county treasury?
1 comment:
This has nothing to do with the District Atrourney trying to get a conviction, you have it all wrong rrun rrun. This has everything to do with the the District Judge's scam of rewarding thier lawyer friends with defending cases like this. It's like winning the lottery for the lawyers awarded a murder case. The County has to pay for the defense and prosecution of these scum bags and the scum bags that defend them. If the Judge awards an expensive expert, the District Atourney has to hire one of the same calibur. Believe me, the District Atourney does not like retrying these kind of cases becaudes irt drains his budget. The real asses in this matter are trhe district Judge. You think they don't get a nuce contribution from the Lawyer he appoints to defend the case? Look and see how much Nat Perez, and Ed Stapelton gave the judge.
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